LAHORE, April 21: Of 19 officers whose service tenure in Lahore was found exceeding the allowed period around three months ago, 18 are still working in the city because of their alleged connections on the pretext of their `indispensability’.

“The plan to transfer such officers seems to have been dumped in the clod storage,” sources told Dawn on Saturday.

Punjab Chief Secretary Salman Siddique had on January 26 submitted before the LHC a list of 19 gazetted police officers who had been working in Lahore for more than three years.

The officers included SP Ms Farkhanda Iqbal, posted here on the same seat since August 15, 2002, Additional SP, CIA, Lahore, Masood Aziz serving since 1998, SP Azmat Ullah Gondal serving in Lahore since 2001, DSP Noor Ahmad Bhatti serving since January 1, 2003, DSP Malik Muhammad Asif serving since June 2, 1992, DSP Asif Javed serving since August 27, 1995, to date, (He also served in the city as an inspector); DSP Ahmad Saleem serving since May 8, 1992 as inspector and DSP; DSP Asif Hayyat serving since June 8, 1998, as an inspector and DSP; DSP Asif Khan since 2002; DSP Mansoor Naji since 2000; DSP Muhammad Shabbir Shah since November 22, 2003; DSP Arif Mehmood Butt since 1995 as inspector and DSP; DSP Jaffar Abbas since May 23, 2003; DSP Taseer Ahmad Dar since May 8, 1992, as an inspector and DSP; DSP Jamal Nasir since December 29, 2003 and DSP Javed Akhtar was serving in Lahore as DSP since July 1, 1999.

The only officer who has been transferred on the ground of overstaying in the city is former SSP (Investigation) Shafqaat Ahmad.

The sources claimed the actual number of overstaying officers was more than double of the known figure and their overstay was in contravention of the Police Order 2002.

Some of these officers, they said, were so well-connected that their bosses had been unable to transfer them despite being desired so by the provincial government and, in some cases, even by the courts as well.

The sources said the issue had been put on the backburner under the pretext that the new officers would take time to understand the nature of crime in the city. This, they said, was a lame excuse, as transfer of a few officers, some of them with not so good a repute, could not affect law and order in the city. The new comers could also grasp the city’s crime scenario soon if they had the will and were properly guided by their seniors, they added.

They said some of the overstaying officers were actually more powerful than the law determining their tenure. “They can be indispensable for certain quarters but certainly not for the police department which does not lack able and honest officers,” they remarked.